The wagering gaming industry is often subject to jurisdictional regulations that require recordation of various gaming events for future playback, examination, reporting, and/or verification. For example, the play history of a wagering game (e.g., game outcome, intermediate play steps, credits available, bets placed, credits paid, credits cashed out, etc.) for a predetermined number of most recent games may be mandated by one or more jurisdictional regulations. For each game play history, a jurisdiction may additionally mandate storing a predetermined number of the most recent intermediate play step event results along with the game outcome.
In some cases, a single game event may trigger a large number of subsequent events to be performed (e.g., a large number of free spins are granted at once, several bonus games are concurrently triggered, a bonus game is triggered within another bonus game, etc.). Electronic gaming machines (EGMs) have a finite (and relatively small) amount of non-volatile random-access memory for saving game histories and game play steps. As the number of play steps increases for a particular game history, a loss of data relating to bonus game triggering events may occur.
Thus, when examining or reviewing the stored game event data when very large numbers of play steps occur and/or concurrent or nested bonus games are being performed, there may be a considerable loss of contextual information for subsequent play steps of the wagering game during playback. An improved process and methodology for effectively logging and storing chronological event information for game cycles is needed that maintains contextual information related to subsequent gaming events. Further, the ability to record and maintain information providing context for large numbers of gaming events (particularly in nested bonus games), in addition to maintaining game play information and outcomes for display, may be very helpful for facilitating disputes of gameplay made by the player and/or game operator after the game has completed.